Page 26 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

“Oh, but this is very real, Lady,” Danar Rrivae says.

He wears his long gray hair tied in a crimson ribbon and a sleeveless black tunic that hides the countless spheres and vines that symbolize the realms he’s infected—or successfully stolen.

His bare skin is a mix of pale white and sickly violet.

His green eyes are as soft as the fog swallowing us.

I glare at those markings swirling beneath his tunic and across his arms. Danar Rrivae is Dindt—an explorer and seeker.

He isn’t Mera. He also wears the crimson ribbons of Raqiel guards, who are descended from the Onama and Mera—again, Danar Rrivae is neither.

Not only has he stolen realms, but he’s also stolen traditions, stolen valor.

“Let them go,” I demand, knowing that he won’t, not until he gets what he came here for.

“You have something that belongs to me,” he says, fire and ice blending in his voice.

I shake my head. “There’s nothing on Vallendor that you can rightfully claim.”

“The Librum Esoterica longs to be at home. Give it back to me.”

“I gave that book to Syrus Wake,” I say. “It belongs to him now.”

…

On that day, we stood in the heart of Brithellum, in an open arena with high archways framing the sky. The Librum Esoterica rested on a pedestal of polished obsidian, casting its light across Syrus Wake’s face.

Priests and Renrian scholars, including Veril, Separi, and Adjudicator Saerahil Fynal, had assembled to witness Syrus Wake, twenty summers old, kneel before me.

The Librum Esoterica had levitated between my hands as I said, “Syrus Wake, you stand at the threshold of greatness. This book is the key to the wisdom of the ages but also carries the burden of truth. You, young king, are entrusted to guard it, to seek its counsel, and to wield it not for power, but for balance and understanding, for the protection of your people.”

As soon as Wake’s fingers closed around the book, the gem WISDOM flared with brilliant light. A matching silver band with an indention that matched WISDOM’S size formed around the new king’s left ring finger.

“It will not open for ambition nor will it open for pride,” I’d warned him. “It will yield only to those who seek knowledge for the sake of the realm, and even then, only in times of great need. Remember this, my chosen king.”

…

But that was then, and this… this is fucked up.

“Syrus Wake belongs to me ,” Danar Rrivae now says. “But rest easy, Kaivara. I came to bargain with you, not to fight.”

Those owl-hare creatures hop away from their log and over to Danar Rrivae, Jamart, and Lively.

“These creatures shouldn’t be here,” I whisper, gripping my dagger tighter. “Not in this field of lesser creatures. Not on Vallendor.” I pause, then ask, “What are they?”

“Minulles,” the traitor says. He clucks his tongue.

The creatures look at him and call back—and that call sounds like its name. Men -yool. Other owl-hares hop out of their underground dens and purr to each other. Men -yool. Men -yool. Then they corner a field mouse and eat her.

“See?” Danar Rrivae says. “Good riddance. No one likes mice.”

“That field mouse dug burrows that kept the soil loose. She spreads seeds and scavenges and—” I glare at the traitor. “This is what you do: destroy order.”

“Funny coming from you, of all gods.” His hand leaves Jamart’s head and slips down to the man’s neck.

“I saw your new creatures lurking around the Sea of Devour,” I say, my pulse racing, eyes on the traitor’s hand. “They flew with leather wings. Brought beasts that I’d slain back to life. How did they do that?”

Danar Rrivae chuckles but doesn’t answer my question. His amulet, a twisting red-tipped vine of moving metal, glows against his black tunic.

“You destroy order,” I say, “but you keep chaos flourishing.”

“Who are you to accuse me of destruction and chaos, Destroyer ?” He laughs and adds, “They call you ‘Maelstrom’ in Caburh. Did you know that?” His other hand now disappears into Lively’s tangled blond hair.

“That’s just one of the many names I’m called. And what do those in Caburh call you ?”

His face turns hard as stone.

“They call you nothing, since they credit me for all of your…” I wave my hand at the minulles. “How awful for you, to do all this work for a Diminished Mera to get the glory.”

The traitor’s rage makes more mist that crawls over my skin like oil.

“Let the candlemaker and his daughter go,” I say, “and I will personally write a song just for you. I’ll make children learn the words, and they’ll sing it at festivals and…”

Jamart’s crooked mouth opens wide, and his eyes burn with pain, so much pain that he can’t even cry out.

So I cry out for him. “Stop! What do you want?”

“We can heal this realm,” Danar says.

I squint at him. “We?”

“Yes. We can heal Vallendor and save ourselves.”

My eyes dart to Jamart—his face has relaxed some. Danar’s grip on him has eased.

“Ambitious realms need ambitious minds,” Danar continues.

“Verdant realms need verdant minds. I won’t surrender in my quest for Vallendor.

You refuse to give her up as well. But what if…

? What if, together , we force the Eserime to heal this place?

We make them bring back clean, sweet waters and banks of crystal-white sand.

What if we made them give us a sky as blue as the restored sea and rich soil that nurtures those blue flowers you love but can no longer grow here?

You want all of this, Blood of All. So do I.

” The picture he paints is tempting, beautiful, but the prisoners in Danar’s hold tell a different story.

Lively clasps her clenched hands at her lips. “I turn to only you, Lady, because you love me most of all.” Praying .

“Imagine the orders working together,” Danar Rrivae says. “Those loyal to you, those loyal to me. Imagine, just for a moment. Close your eyes and picture…”

I close my eyes against my will, and I see myself standing on the banks of a river with soft sand— No. I force my eyes open again.

The land must be made anew. Forcing Eserime to use their gifts won’t be enough.

Only Mera can bring enough fire and winds to cleanse a realm.

Only after that can the Eserime heal the soil, singing over the smallest dewdrops to coax life to return.

Those dewdrops grow to become lakes and oceans that nourish plants that then nourish animals of the land and sea, and then mortals… That’s the order of things.

But Vallendor isn’t so far gone that it needs cleansing fire. In this, Danar Rrivae sounds like Zephar. And yes, there was a time I, too, thought about burning Vallendor down to its roots and starting again, but I have learned from that mistake. Good still exists here. Beauty still thrives here.

“That’s what I want, Kaivara,” Danar Rrivae says.

“That’s why I’m here. To complete all that you’d aimed to do for this realm.

They didn’t want you to succeed. You were too young to be allowed that much success and control.

Others aimed to outshine you, and they needed to stop you, the genius Mera-Eserime girl who could command and swing a blade better than any pure Mera.

“You know…I wasn’t the first to be labeled as a ‘usurper.’ There were others who fought and died—and failed—to set realms on the right path.

You and I, though… Our causes were different.

We didn’t want to destroy realms for the sake of destruction.

We loved the beings of those worlds, and we wanted better—”

“What do you want?” I ask, sounding like Uncle Agon. “Right now. At this moment.”

He doesn’t speak.

Lively’s lips move, but she makes no sound as she prays.

“What were their names?” I ask, more softly.

Danar Rrivae raises his eyebrows as more mist rolls off of him. Behind me, shadows move and glowing coral light starts to pulse faintly in the fog.

“Indis, my beloved,” Danar Rrivae whispers at last. “My sons, Uriel, Kaleb, Golewn, and Aniya, my daughter. They were unjustly taken from me when you destroyed Birius.”

“Jamart and Lively,” I say, “they don’t have anything to do with—”

“They have everything to do with you and me, and our struggle.”

My hand squeezes the dagger I still hold, and my throat closes around the lump forming in my neck.

Danar Rrivae, Jamart, and his daughter drift closer to me, and their approach makes the hair on my neck stand.

“You were abandoned by your father,” the traitor says, “because you were unlovable, because you were unteachable and prone to violence. He left you with Lyra and the Eserime in hopes that they could salvage something good from you. But then…” His lip curls viciously even as his eyes soften.

“There’s nothing worse than killing your own mother.

The sad thing is everyone knew you would, but no one could stop you. ”

I shake my head. “That isn’t true—”

“But then what were you supposed to do?” he asks, with innocent eyes.

“It was in your nature to kill. Your parents had created a being who shouldn’t have been, and the Aetherium was worse off for it.

And the Council was so shocked that you destroyed realms without approval, that you thought that you were Supreme—”

“I’ve never claimed to be Supreme—”

“How it must eat you up inside to be called ‘Diminished,’” he continues.

“And then to see, firsthand, the death and the killing, the sickness of the land and sea, the animals and mortals…all of life here suffering. But to do something about it, you had to first fill out forms so some bureaucrat who hasn’t been a Grand Defender in ages upon ages can tell you that Yorra or Ithlon or Melki weren’t that bad? ”

He squints at me. “When was the last time your father held a dying child in his arms? When was the last time Izariel witnessed the last of a beautiful species perish? Does he even know what a ‘daxinea’ is and what will be lost to Vallendor once she finally succumbs to the filthy air she breathes each day? Yet he calls you ‘Diminished’?”

Lively’s amber glow brightens, and she pants, unable to breathe.

“Why would Supreme allow this realm to suffer?” Danar Rrivae asks. “Where’s the mercy in such torture?”

I close my eyes and grip the dagger’s handle with both hands. Lively is right there , I remind myself, even as Danar speaks to my pain.

“You hesitate to do what you know is right ,” he says in that voice of heated ice. “Why?”

“You don’t understand,” I whisper.

“ I don’t understand?” he shouts, and now his eyes turn blood red.

“You think I want to roam from realm to realm searching for my family? They’re out there, crying for me.

I can’t— I won’t —stop, and if, in my search, I can free others while taking what has been taken from me, why shouldn’t I do that?

There are beings who need help, who want better.

Am I so wrong to restore hope and make them whole? ”

Jamart’s face twists, and his amber glow… He’s dying, oh fuck , he’s dying.

“Stop, please,” I say, reaching my hands out to them, my heart in my throat.

“Do you want to save them?” Danar asks, icy.

“More than anything,” I cry out, tears in my eyes.

“How far will you go to save them?”

I start running to Jamart and Lively, but they roll away from me. I don’t stop running, though, even as my muscles cramp beneath my armor.

“What will you give to save them?” the traitor asks.

Beads of sweat roll down my face and sting my eyes and the cuts on my chin.

“What will you give up, Kaivara?” he asks again.

I keep running, reaching out but never catching up.

“I will let these two live,” he says, “and three others of your choosing if you surrender Vallendor. Five lives saved for the five lives your father took from me—”

I turn, veering away from Jamart and Lively with a shout, and take a giant leap toward the traitor, my dagger ready.

Tempest sinks into a space that should be Danar Rrivae’s ribcage. Yet nothing is solid there—no bones, no muscle, just a sucking, icy void.

I wince at the cold, but I lunge again, aiming this time at his neck.

No skin. Just space.

His eyes burn with that haunting scarlet heat, and he hurls fire at me from his hands.

I swat each ball away with gusts of wind.

He grabs my hand that holds the dagger and squeezes it.

I scream—his touch feels like fire and ice, burning and freezing. Light that isn’t mine glows from the inside of my arm. I smell heat that isn’t fire—no, this smells of earth and sky, and it rushes up my arm to my shoulder.

Danar Rrivae grips Jamart’s neck until the man’s head separates from his body. Then he lights Lively on fire.

I scream, “No!” over and over again, and I lob my own fireballs at him, one after the other. But in my anger, in my pain, every one misses that fucker, who now rolls away from me on that cloud, farther and farther away.

He doesn’t even leave Jamart and Lively behind for me to bury.

Alone—even the minulles have abandoned me—I sink to the ground in tears, and—

Pop!

I’m no longer on my knees in Maford behind Farmer Gery’s barn. No—I’m now kneeling beside the stream in the Misty Garden, that liminal space between the Temple of Celestial and the Sanctum.

Did Spryte take my frantic desire to return to this garden, a place of peace and beauty, and instantly transport me there? If so, I need to work on controlling my— Ouch!

The arm that Danar Rrivae grabbed is now throbbing. All of me hurts. I bend to scoop water from that crystal stream and—

Shit.

My reflection…

My arm…

Crackles of lightning zigzag beneath my skin…

Maelstrom.